2x09 The Love God

[7.7/10] I don’t know how I feel about the ending of this episode. Maybe it’s just the lessons learned from the Harry Potter series, but I’m leery, for whatever reason, of just letting two people stay entranced by a love potion. Taken charitably, I think it’s meant to show that Mabel is legitimately a good matchmaker and sees something in Robbie and Tambry that they didn’t see in themselves, and that’s laudable. But just letting a magic potion supersede their wills like that is uncomfortable.

At the same time, I’m equally leery about how Dipper ingratiates himself with the older kids’ group. I do appreciate the fact that he’s excited about being accepted by the older kids and doesn’t want to mess that up. But I’m not crazy about him teasing and, frankly, bullying poor Thompson like the rest of the teenagers do. I was hoping part of the resolution would be him realizing that. They do give Thompson a bit of a win here, with him helping to get the gang back together and the whole crew cheering him on as he’s pursued by the security guards, but it still feels outside the empathetic spirit of the show.

All of that said, I really liked this one! For such a one-note villain, it’s nice to see the show treat cruddy Robbie with a little bit of sympathy. The fact that he’s still struggling to get over Wendy, and comes from a family of chipper funeral home professionals gives him a little more depth and pathos than we normally get for the antagonist.

It’s also a good Mabel episode. Her desire to try to make everyone happy is as noble as it is misguided. Her sympathy for Robbie is sweet. And I also get a kick out of the way she flies too close to the sun, thinking she’s solved the problem by connecting Robbie and Tambry, only to discover that it disrupts the delicate social balance of the group.

I do appreciate the observation from Dipper that the group dynamics are fragile. Two members hooking up leads to jealousy, frustration, and tension that basically scatters everyone to the winds. The efforts to fix it are as comical as the grand unraveling, and it’s nice that the crew gets over it just as quickly, showing a certain mercurial nature of teens.

Speaking of which, there’s a lot of laughs to be had here from making fun of youth culture across the ages. The very concept of “Woodstick” is a funny one, especially as it mixes 1970s hippies (which Stan has an established distaste for) and 2010s hipsters into one amusing pastiche. As someone who listens to more than one band that qualifies as “The Handlebar Bros.”, I got a big kick out of the way the show poked fun at those subcultures and teenagers in general.

Stan trying to appeal to them with a hot air balloon was a particular treat. The way his janky hot balloon changed from “I heart children” to “I eat children” was hilarious, and the grotesque design and ensuing terror were a laugh and a half. I’ll confess, I didn’t get as many yuks out of the titular love god, despite him being voiced by the great John DiMaggio, but the premise of the love potions still added a solid supernatural element to the proceedings.

Overall, the laughs were here, the characters and misadventures were good, I just had a few qualms about where things landed. Still a quality episode!